Page 5 of I Saw You First

“I—my—I got laid off.” For some reason—embarrassment, shame, disgust, sadness, all of the above—I can’t tell her what really happened. “My position was eliminated.” There. That sounds confident and definitive, even if it’s only partially true.

“You were up for a promotion! How did that turn into a layoff?”

“I wish I knew.” The pit monster reminds me that he’s still there, and he’s hungry, so he takes a swipe and my stomach lurches. I don’t like to lie to anyone, but maybe someday, I’ll be able to convince myself of this fabrication and forget the real story.

Bri and I met in a sociology class at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. She graduated the year before me and spent eight months as a nanny in Florida before realizing that she craved all four seasons. She came home to Minnesota, went back to her high school job at Dayton’s department store, found a part-time job at the preschool, and needed a roommate. This apartment at the sketchy Everly Estates—nothing stately about it—was the best we could do.

I open the refrigerator door and grab a Diet Coke. I pop the tab and take a long drink before I continue. “Instead of the meeting with Ryan and Kim, Ryan… um… informed me that I was no longer employed.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry!”

“I loved working there.” My voice cracks. “I was supposed to meet Prince!”

“You were? When?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. Someday.”

“Well, I can’t introduce you to The Artist formerly known as Prince, but I have something almost as good that might cheer you up.” She digs in her purse on the counter and pulls out two tickets printed on gold cardstock. “Terry got tickets to see HollowPoint tonight and can’t go!”

I snatch at the tickets. HOLLOWPOINT with Special Guests A NEW COMPLAINT * At THE GOLDEN * Minneapolis * 09/09/1996

“Unless you’re too tired or, you know, sad,” Brianna says. “I can see if⁠—”

I cut her off. “I want to go!” HollowPoint is one of my favorite local bands. “What time will you be ready?”

She laughs. “I’m going to take a nap.”

I try to sleep, too, but the monster in the pit of my stomach keeps me awake with memories of those moments in Ryan’s office, the feel of his hand on my skin, his words—the threats—that stitch their way into my mind.

Show me what else you can do with that smart mouth of yours, or you’re done.

I launch myself from the bed into the half-bath and hover over the toilet, but there’s nothing left. I dry-heave until my abs ache, and then I lie down on my side, my knees to my chest and my cheek on the cold tile.

No. I’m not going to let Ryan Bradford and his filthy hands bring me down. I’m going to see HollowPoint tonight, and it’s going to be awesome, and tomorrow, I’ll figure everything out. I stand up, plug in my hot rollers, and rummage through a basket of clean laundry for my favorite jeans—light blue button flies worn through on the thigh.

“Everything’s always working out for you,” I whisper to my reflection in the full-length mirror on the back of my bedroom door—my complexion’s still a bit gray and my hair’s matted on one side. Nothing a little concealer and Mega Spritz can’t fix. “And don’t you forget it.”

TWO

“MISERY” BY SOUL ASYLUM, 1995

WIL

“Well, shit,” Sam says after I slam the swinging door into the warehouse rack behind it with a thwap and throw myself down into the empty chair at the inventory desk. “That could have gone better.”

“What a disaster.” I lean forward and drop my head into my hands. I needed a win today, and instead, everything is much, much worse. “I’m stuck, Sam. I’m never getting out of here.”

My best friend reaches over and slaps me on the back—hard. “Get over yourself, Jaws. It was one eval. A very shitty eval.”

“A very shitty eval in a long line of very shitty evals.”

Sam and I go way back, and he’s called me Jaws—a play on my initials—almost as long. We both started at Hometown Electronics when we were sixteen, working nights and weekends in the warehouse. We unloaded trucks and then later turned around and loaded products into customers’ vehicles. We built actual muscles as well as the kind of mental muscles needed to wedge an enormous TV into a hatchback. And how to not punch the throat of any dumbass who thinks they can fit an enormous TV into the back of their stupid hatchback. Sam and I went to different colleges but worked here during breaks, and when the time came to start our careers, there was no question for either of us. Hometown Electronics was our future, and we wanted the future to begin here at Woodlake, the company’s flagship location.

“Well, what are you going to do about it?” He’s not smug, although he could be. Inventory scored a 91 on their evaluation yesterday. Sam and his assistant team captain, Eric, have this warehouse buttoned up—their paperwork, the backstock, the truck process, accurate inventory counts. My department, merchandising and media, barely scraped by with a 77, by far the worst score on an eval by the district team we’ve had since I moved into the merch manager role a couple of months ago.

“Shane and Aurora both need to step it up as team captains,” I say, “especially Aurora. This is the flagship store. There’s no room for mediocrity.”

Sam huffs out a laugh. “You sound like your dad.”